


The Beauty of All Life

by madman_with_a_warehouse



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Arielle will exist at some point, F/F, F/F/F, if i can even finish this, refer to previous tag about finishing, so the major character death isn't that big of a thing, the mosaic au that someone actually asked for, you know what happens in the mosaic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22148683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madman_with_a_warehouse/pseuds/madman_with_a_warehouse
Summary: Quentin and Eliot make it to Margo's wedding, but when Kady and Alice try to follow they are transported to Fillory's past and have to solve the worst art project ever...Or The Kalice Mosaic AU
Relationships: Kady Orloff-Diaz/Alice Quinn
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was inspired by parallelbeetle's [beautiful artwork](https://parallelbeetle.tumblr.com/post/189422979053/someone-please-write-this-as-a-fic) for this same premise

Alice stepped through the clock with Kady following behind her. They appeared in the middle of a forest and the portal closed behind them, closing off the opportunity for them to return the way they came. The leaves were so green — Alice had never gotten the chance to appreciate the beauty of Fillory in this way before. She took a moment to soak it all in and noticed that the thing that stood out about her surroundings wasn’t the chirping of the birds or the gentle breeze, it was the hum she could feel under her skin. A feeling she had been unceremoniously cut off from a few months ago.

Kady’s voice broke through her thoughts, “Do you feel that?” she asked. All she could do was nod in response. Of course she could. It was all she could feel.

“Magic,” she replied, dumbfounded. “Magic is back.”

“But it can’t be. We’re still on this stupid quest.”

Kady was right. If they hadn’t finished the quest in the present that means they were in the past. Fillory loved to mess with time and this was no exception. She communicated as much to Kady and was met with a litany of muttered (and shouted) curses. Alice let her storm off into the woods as she assessed what their next course of action should be. If the key brought them here, brought them now, then they were supposed to continue the quest that neither of them had volunteered for but had chosen them to be its champions anyway. Before he had left for Margo’s wedding, Quentin had mentioned the mosaic that granted young Jane Chatwin a key. Alice was sure that he had wanted to be the one to solve it but if the quest had deposited her and Kady here, they were the ones best suited for the task. With that in mind, she set off to find Kady and the mosaic.

To say Kady was displeased with the news Alice gave her was a gross understatement. But as Alice pointed out, there seemed to be no route back to their time and the faster they got started on the puzzle, the faster they could get back to their time. 

They arrived in time to see a man throw several tiles to the ground and leave in a huff. That wasn’t encouraging, but maybe all it needed was a couple of talented magicians that had been sent here by fate or a quest to return magic. Alice let her gaze fall upon the uncompleted picture inside the stone frame; she couldn’t figure out what the man had been trying to make with the tiles. 

Kady picked up a stack of tiles and started placing them in the empty places. At the face Alice must have made she replied, “Well, we might as well get started with what’s already here,” and returned to placing them. When there were no more holes to fill they both waited with bated breath.

Nothing.

 _Dammit_ , she thought. Well, it was unlikely that they would solve it as soon as they got there but she could hope. “Step back,” Alice instructed. Once Kady was off the mosaic, she twisted her hands into a well-practiced tut and recited the Slavic in her head. Her mind filled with the circumstances around her and she executed an effectively perfect spell, but the tiles weren’t moving. There was no clean and graceful rising and swirling before they shifted positions, there wasn’t even a halfhearted twitch. _What?_ No, this couldn’t be right. She rechecked the circumstances and tried again. Tried again out loud. Stretched her fingers and as disgusting as she found the habit, cracked her knuckles. No matter what she did, the tiles weren’t responding to her magic. She even tried a spell for shifting the color of an individual tile to no avail.

“Just give up. It’s not going to work,” Kady said from her new position on the ground. She had sat down at the fifteen-minute mark of Alice’s increasingly frustrated spellwork. Although Alice had not noticed when sitting turned into laying down, clearly Kady had at some point shifted, because her head was low and one of her hands was between it and the dirt below.

Alice huffed. “Then at least get off your ass and help me pick up the tiles so we can start for real.”

Kady groaned and covered her eyes with her free arm, but after a few moments got up and started prying a red tile out of the mosaic. Alice bent over to do the same with a dark blue one. They did this until their backs were sore, fingernails were chipped, and the board was completely empty of anything but the dirt base. A quick survey of the stacks of multicolored tiles and some calculations showed that they would be here for a very long time.

“I’d say ‘I hope we’re lucky,’ but Penny just _died_ and now I’m stuck here with you, so I don’t think lucky is a word that will ever describe us,” Kady spat when Alice showed her the number of possible combinations. She walked away from Alice and went into the little cottage a few yards from the mosaic. 

_Guess that’s my cue to start. ___


	2. Cut 1 of 1000

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kady is frustrated, Alice improvises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wrote this chapter with the first one and I would have posted it sooner but I forgot (it's not like anyone's reading anyway)

Ten days in and Kady was at her tipping point. Alice was inside the cottage making lunch while Kady was on mosaic duty. The sharp edge of the tile Kady was holding sliced her finger open and sharp heat flared across her fingertip and blood was smeared on the tile she dropped. That was it. She had had enough and sent a powerful blast of battle magic at the board. That would have been strong enough to push The Beast back several feet or throw any regular human across the Brakebills quad but the only thing that moved now was the grass surrounding the cottage. “UGH!”

She was done with this magical quest _bullshit_. They had done roughly three and a half boards a day bringing the number of combinations they’d tried up to- _Not fucking enough_ , Kady thought bitterly. Alice might have herself convinced this was the fastest way to get back to their timeline, but there was no way in hell she was spending the next year in that tiny cottage with her. If they weren’t back in 6 months, she’d pack her nonexistent bags and leave.

Alice must have heard her temper tantrum because when she walked outside, two matching plates in hand, her eyebrow was raised and her face was a slightly toned-down version of the one she had worn around Mayakovsky. “I just don’t understand who would invent a pointless puzzle with super vague instructions and then, because this person is so fun, make the puzzle pieces lethal!” She held up her bleeding finger for Alice to see. “You know, I really hope that person is still alive so I can hunt him down myself.”

Alice placed the plates on the table and came over to her. “Let me see.” 

Kady scoffed. “What’re you going to do? Kiss it better?” Alice wasn’t exactly the maternal type and she wasn’t in the mood to be babied anyway.

Alice rolled her eyes and yanked her wrist out with a surprising amount of force. Her fingers swirled around the wound, dirt and blood flowing to them as if they were magnetic until her fingers closed and everything became still again. The heat in her finger was accompanied by a strong itch but just as soon as the thought crossed her mind it was if it had never been there in the first place. Alice worked another minute until her entire hand glowed.

“Sorry,” said Alice. She waved once more and the glowing stopped. “We don’t have any bandages so I made your hand temporarily invulnerable. It’ll only last an hour or so but it’s enough to stop the bleeding and keep anything from getting in or out.” In just a blink, she had returned to the table and sat down. “If we’re going to be here a while, we should go get some and some other supplies to make this bearable.”

Kady found herself nodding despite the voice in her head telling her getting supplies meant admitting defeat. She mimicked Alice and sat down to eat. She bit into the sandwich and was surprised at the burst of liquid that came with it. Alice had added the delicious tomatoes they had found yesterday when they took a break after dinner. She must have gone back to the spot before Kady woke up this morning. She looked across the table and was met with a small, pleased smile and a hint of mirth in Alice’s eyes.

They finished their meal in silence and Alice kneeled down where Kady had dropped the bloody tile and resumed placing tiles down. Reluctantly, Kady joined her. She alternated between giving directions and placing the sharp tiles into place. When Alice reapplied the invulnerability enchantment, her face a mask of pure concentration, Kady admitted to herself that if she was stuck working on this, at least she wasn’t doing it alone.


End file.
